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Colorful mural under way in GC underpass

A year ago, a major part of the construction of the pedestrian underpass on Goshen College's campus was completed. Now, a GC alumnus is leading the effort in putting up a colorful mural in the underpass.

Marlys Weaver-Stoesz

Posted on July 4, 2013 at 1:00 a.m.
| Updated on July 4, 2013 at 8:29 a.m.

GOSHEN — Last fall, students returned to Goshen College’s campus to find a newly constructed pedestrian underpass, providing a route from one side of the campus to the other when a train is traveling through. This year, they’ll return to find that underpass covered in color.

Noah Yoder, a 2010 Goshen College graduate, designed the abstract mural and is overseeing the painting of the mural on to the underpass’ walls and ceiling. Goshen College’s Student Senate selected Yoder’s design after requesting submissions from student and alumni art majors, according to the college.

The Student Senate wanted a mural that would be “aesthetically pleasing while also discouraging vandalism,” said Student Senate member Rachel Smucker of Lancaster, Pa., in a release from the college.

“There’s so much color and vibrancy down there,” Smucker said Wednesday, July 3, about the mural. “I think people will really appreciate it.”

A public relations major who will be a junior at the college this fall, Smucker said that students used the underpass after it opened, but that upperclassmen, used to standing and waiting for trains to pass, seemed to use it less.

“I think it’s definitely appreciated,” she said. “Goshen had been promising an underpass for quite a while,” and now that students have it, they want to use it.

Yoder said that he began the mural’s design while looking at a map of the college’s campus, then changing and transforming the image several times.

“Communicating a specific meaning in the mural is not nearly as important to me as creating something that people will love and enjoy,” he said.

Yoder said Wednesday that the mural will likely be complete sometime next week.